AI Storyboard Generator: Script to Shot List and Previz

An AI storyboard generator turns a written idea into a shot-by-shot visual plan before you spend anything on video. On VdoBloom, the Storyboard tool in the video-creation dashboard takes a one-line premise, writes the plan for free, draws the whole board as panels you can redraw one at a time, then animates it into a finished clip — so you see the film before you pay for it.

Updated October 2026.

What an AI storyboard actually generates

A storyboard is not a picture of your film. It is a decision document: how many shots, what each one frames, what the camera does, and how the cuts fall. Traditional boards are drawn by hand or by an artist, and they are drawn after the script is locked, because drawing them before wastes an illustrator’s time on shots that will change.

That ordering is exactly what an AI storyboard inverts. The plan is generated first, in seconds, and it is editable free of charge — so the board becomes the cheapest place to be wrong. You look at six to nine frames and discover that your idea does not need an establishing shot, or that it needs two, and you fix it in the plan rather than in the render.

The second thing an AI board gives you is consistency. Because the panels are generated as a set rather than one at a time in separate sessions, the look holds together: the same style preset, the same character, the same framing language. And because the panels then become the reference for the video models, what you approved is what the video follows.

How to make one on VdoBloom

The tool runs as a three-phase wizard — Plan, Storyboard, Video — in VdoBloom’s video-creation dashboard, and the flow below is the one you will actually click through.

1. Pick a style preset. The Style control sets the whole visual language for the board, including how many panels it suggests and which aspect ratios it allows. The default preset is a cinematic short, which suggests 6 or 9 panels in either 9:16 or 16:9.
2. Write or upload the script. Choose “Plan it for me” and type your idea into the textarea — the placeholder the tool itself gives is “a street-food cook shares her last dumpling with a stray cat”, which is a good model for the length and shape of input it wants: one premise, one image, one turn. If you already have a board or a shot list, choose “Upload my own” instead and skip the planning step.
3. Choose panels and aspect ratio. When planning, panel counts come from the preset (6 or 9 by default). When uploading, the choices are 4, 6, 9, 12 or 16. Then set the frame: 9:16 Vertical or 16:9 Landscape.
4. Add reference photos if the shot depends on them. Two optional uploads cover the two things models drift on. A Character photo “keeps the same face in every panel”. A Product photo is “kept unchanged in every shot”, which matters the moment a label or a logo has to stay legible across cuts. Images must be under 15 MB.
5. Generate the plan — it costs nothing. The button reads “Plan my storyboard — free” when planning or “Use my storyboard — free” when uploading. You get the panel-by-panel description and can edit any line at no cost until it reads like the film you mean.
6. Draw the board. The next screen quotes the cost before it charges: the button reads “Draw the storyboard (n cr)”. This is the step that turns your plan into visible panels.
7. Fix panels individually. On the board screen you get “Redraw all (n cr)”, “Use my own image” for a panel you have already made yourself, and per-panel “Redraw panel n” at a smaller per-panel price — much cheaper than regenerating the set because one frame missed the brief. If a panel shows four people and you meant one, there is also a casting picker for which of the four to carry forward.
8. Animate it. “Animate storyboard” turns the approved board into video using the panel images as reference, with the model, resolution, duration and sound set on the same screen. The summary line keeps the arithmetic honest as you go: plan free, storyboard at one price, video at another.

The tool is also defensive about the two things that usually break a storyboard-to-video run: the panel images are mirrored to permanent storage while you work, so an expiring provider link between the board and the render does not lose your work, and your progress is saved in the browser, so a refresh does not cost you the planning step.

Prompt examples for the planning step

The plan is only as good as the premise, and the tool responds best to a single concrete situation with a beginning and a turn rather than a list of adjectives.

• “A street-food cook shares her last dumpling with a stray cat waiting under the stall.”
• “A courier in the rain realises the parcel in his bag is addressed to his own street.”
• “A ceramicist turns a cracked bowl into a repaired gold-seam piece and sets it on the shelf.”
• “Two runners race the same last hundred metres, one in new shoes, one barefoot.”
• “A barista closes the shop, then makes one more coffee and sits alone with it in the dark.”
• “A skincare tester applies the product, checks the mirror, and walks out into morning light.”

Notice what these have in common: one subject, one action, one change. A premise with a turn gives the planner something to cut on; a premise that is a mood gives it nothing to draw.

Which model to pick for the animation step

The board animates on the Seedance family, which is the group the tool describes as following the storyboard panel by panel. Every model on VdoBloom quotes its credit total before you confirm, and the four options differ in ways that matter for boards.

Model	What it is for	Per-second rate (no reference video)
Seedance 2	The default: closest panel adherence, 4–15s, 480p to 4K, audio included	About 7.75 cr/s at 480p and 16.5 at 720p
Seedance 2.5	Newest and longest, up to 30 seconds, 480p–1080p	About 11.2 cr/s at 480p and 25.2 at 720p
Seedance 2 Fast	Faster look-development pass	About 4.8 cr/s at 480p and 10 at 720p
Seedance 2 Mini	Cheapest drafts and timing checks	About 1.6 cr/s at 480p and 3.3 at 720p

The tab’s resolution pills cover 480p and 720p by default and duration defaults to 10 seconds with a 15-second option, with a sound toggle that is on by default. The honest way to choose: build the board, check the timing on Mini, and spend on the flagship only when the edit is locked. Sound on means you are paying for a generated audio track with the picture, which is a real advantage on a board that has voiceover timing to hit.

Common mistakes

• Boarding too few panels for the length. The tool warns you when the maths comes out at about 1.5 seconds or less per panel, because that is a fast-cut sequence. If the warning fires and you did not intend fast cuts, add panels or shorten the clip.
• Approving a plan you have not read. Planning is free and editing is free. There is no reason to spend on drawing a board whose shot list you skimmed.
• Redrawing everything to fix one panel. Per-panel redraw exists precisely so that one weak frame does not cost the price of the set.
• Skipping the reference uploads. If the same face or the same product has to survive six panels, upload it. Consistency is much cheaper to specify up front than to repair afterwards.
• Animating at the highest resolution first. Draft the motion, confirm the timing, then re-render the approved board higher. The panels do not change between runs.

How this differs from prompting a video model directly

Prompting a model directly is one decision with a lot of luck in it: you describe a shot, wait, and find out whether the camera did what you meant. A storyboard front-loads that uncertainty into frames you can see, in a format you can edit, at a price you can quote — and it produces a document you can show a client or a colleague before anything is animated. For a single improvised clip, direct prompting is faster. For anything with more than one shot, the board is the cheaper path, and it is the only one that gives you something to approve.

Frequently asked questions

Does generating the storyboard plan cost credits?

No. Planning is free, whether you let the tool plan from your premise or upload your own board, and editing the plan is free too. Credits are only charged when you draw the board and when you animate it.

How many panels can a storyboard have?

When the tool plans for you, the panel count comes from the style preset — six or nine on the default cinematic short. When you upload your own board, you can choose 4, 6, 9, 12 or 16 panels.

Can I keep the same character across every panel?

Yes. Upload a Character photo and the tool is instructed to keep the same face in every panel. There is also a Product photo slot for anything that must stay unchanged in every shot, such as a label or a logo.

Can I fix one panel without redrawing the whole board?

Yes. The board screen has a per-panel redraw at a lower price than redrawing the set, plus an option to drop in an image you made yourself, and a casting picker for choosing which character to keep when a panel generates more people than you asked for.

Which model should I animate the storyboard with?

Seedance 2 is the default and is described as following the panels closely, with 4–15 second clips up to 4K. Seedance 2.5 is the newest and the longest at up to 30 seconds. Seedance 2 Mini is the cheapest way to check timing before you commit, at roughly 3.3 credits per second at 720p.

Open the storyboard tool and plan your first board for free, then check what credits cost before you animate it. If you are new to image-to-video work, AI image-to-video best practices and camera movement prompts cover the shot language the board is written in.